Avionics display systems deployed aboard aircraft have been extensively engineered to visually convey a considerable amount of flight information in an intuitive and readily comprehendible manner. In conventional avionics display systems, the majority of the information visually expressed on a display, such as a primary flight display, pertains to the host aircraft's flight parameters (e.g., the heading, drift, roll, and pitch of the host aircraft), nearby geographical features (e.g., mountain peaks, runways, etc.), and current weather conditions (e.g., developing storm cells). Aside from a neighboring aircraft's current detected position, conventional avionics display systems typically provide little, if any, visual information pertaining to neighboring aircraft. This may be due, in part, to current air traffic management (“ATM”) practices wherein air traffic management is generally managed by personnel stationed within air traffic control and other ground-based control facilities. However, conventional control facility-based ATM systems are inherently limited in the volume of air traffic that they can effectively manage during a given time period. For this reason, the United States has commenced the development and implementation of a modernized ATM system (commonly referred to as the “Next Generation Air Transportation System” or, more simply, “NextGen”) in which air traffic management will be largely handled by individual flight crews utilizing data compiled from a constellation of computerized systems onboard, satellites, and neighboring aircraft.
A multi-function display (MFD) is a device typically mounted on the instrument panel of an aircraft for displaying information and data associated with radar, weapons stores, navigation, etc. The MFD is divided into sections, which can be selected and viewed by a crew member. A navigational map display is one of the most important pages available on the MFD and visually represents what one would see looking directly down on the aircraft or other point of interest; e.g. waypoints, destination city, etc. For the sake of convenience, the following discussion will focus on the scenario which places the host aircraft at the center of at least one range ring displayed of the lateral map or navigational map and representing a specified distance from the host aircraft. For example, three concentric range rings around a host aircraft may each represent one third of the currently selected display range; i.e. if the display range is fifteen nautical miles (NM), each ring may represent an increment of five NM.
However, NextGen operations will require more precise trajectory management in both the space and time domains (i.e. 4D navigation). Thus, flight crews must not only understand and visualize both current and intended trajectories, but must also understand the time scales associated with partial or entire trajectories. This is essential in NextGen operations involving both spatial and time constraints for maximum system efficiency and throughput.
Typical navigation displays provide only spatial scale display with limited time information augmentation; e.g. time windows and time maps. As such, these solutions offer only limited situational awareness in the time domain. Thus, it should be clear that to meet 4-D navigation requirements and increase a pilot's situational awareness within the time domain, it would be desirable to provide performance based range and time scales synchronized in the sense that as one is adjusted, the other is automatically and similarly updated.